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WSU Cross Country Has Disappointing Pac-10 Finishes

LONG BEACH, Calif. - The Washington State men's cross country team finished sixth in the Pacific-10 Cross Country Championships at the Skylinks Golf Course in Long Beach, California, while the women took 10th.

Mark Moeller's 17th place finish is the highest for a Cougar in the men's Pac-10 Championships since Danny Wolf placed ninth in 2004.

Stanford's Chris Derrick was the individual winner with a time of 22:35.0 while leading the No. 1 ranked squad to a victory in the eight team race with 28 points.

'It was a really disappointing day. About as disappointing as it could have been as far as execution and the way we raced,' Cougar coach Pete Julian said. 'The team is pretty down right now and we know we are a lot better (than today's finish). We will run much, much better in two weeks time. We are going to put this race behind us and move forward. I'm confident that the team will respond and run incredibly well in two weeks. The women are tremendously disappointed. This is not indicative of what the team is doing. We are extremely disappointed with the outcomes of both men's and women's races. We weren't ready to run today.'

No. 1 Washington won the 10-team women's competition with 35 points and Oregon's Nicole Blood was the individual winner in a time of 19:41.7.

'Mark Moeller ran an incredible race and had one of the higher finishes for a Washington State runner. I'm pleased with that and he was a bright spot,' Julian said. 'Lisa Egami finished 24th and that was a huge improvement and a bright spot as well. These were a couple of individual performances I was pleased with but this is a team sport and we need to do well as a team.'

The Cougar cross country teams next competition is November 14, at the NCAA West Region Championships at Springfield, Ore.